ebb and flow ... Kilimanjaro claims are snow joke
  from: Offshore Engineer
  by: Michael J Economides
  Friday, May 16, 2008

The science is all in.’ This netted former US vice president Al Gore an Oscar, an Emmy, and a share of a Nobel Prize with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). True believers constantly invoke the ‘scientific consensus’ which supposedly leaves no doubt over the fact of global warming or its causes. ‘Skeptics’ (a word loaded with negative connotations, implying they lack the imagination to see things), and ‘deniers’ (who are either ignorant or in somebody’s pay) are often viewed with scoff and disdain, or worse.

I will not touch on here the issue of anthropogenic global warming, something done by others and myself earlier, except to say this: to the left, worldwide, anthropogenic global warming has become what Creationism is to the right. You either believe or you don’t and to hell with the facts.

But apocalypse is upon us, according to warming acolytes and I will present here some recent scientific claims on the postulated future effects of global warming. There is an astonishing array of claims, many markedly contradictory, published by scientists who already espouse the basic premises of global warming. It seems that global warming has unleashed a pent-up fury and a need for generating studies; the more alarmist the results, the more they are sought after. But the huge contradictions in their claims may exact its most devastating effect on scientists as a group and indeed, on science itself. Nothing more and nothing less than the future credibility of science is at stake.

The snows of Mt Kilimanjaro

Reduction of ice field caused by global warming
a) On February 26, 2001, the New York Times reported that ‘to most mainstream scientists, the rapid erosion of Kilimanjaro’s majestic ice cap, along with the steady retreat of mountaintop glaciers elsewhere, is further dramatic evidence of a relentless warming of the earth’s atmosphere that cannot be explained by normal climate shifts and is at least partly traceable to the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil’.
b) In an interview on CNN’s ‘Larry King Live’ in 2006, Al Gore stated: ‘This is Mount Kilimanjaro, 30 years ago and last year. Within the decade, there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro. This is really not a political issue so much as a moral issue. Temperature increases are taking place all over the world.’ Kilimanjaro’s shrinking ice cap was featured in his awardwinning movie An inconvenient truth.

However, global warming could not have caused the reduction of Kilimanjaro’s ice cap, as shown by these authoritative studies.
a) An article in Nature on November 24, 2003 declared that global warming did not cause the disappearance of Kilimanjaro’s ice cap. ‘Although it’s tempting to blame the [Kilimanjaro] ice loss on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain’s foothills is the more likely culprit,’ said Betsy Mason. Climatologist John Daly also had a similar opinion: ‘What happens on Kilimanjaro will also be happening on countless mountains all over the world where forests on lower slopes have been replaced by open pasture.’
b) University of Virginia research professor Pat Michaels, a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, said: ‘From 1953 through 1976, 21% of the original [ice cap] area was uncovered. This was during a period of global cooling – yes, cooling – of 0.13°F. Around Kilimanjaro, satellite data show a cooling of 0.40°F since 1979. Still, Kilimanjaro’s glaciers continued to shrink.’
c) Climatologist Philip Mote and glaciologist Georg Kaser wrote in June 2007 that the ice loss on Kilimanjaro is driven strictly by solar radiation through sublimation. Since the air near Kilimanjaro’s summit is almost always well below freezing, there is typically no melting due to air temperature. ‘The decline is most likely associated with processes dominated by sublimation and with an energy balance dominated by solar radiation, rather than by a warmer troposphere.’

Conclusion

There is little question that global warming has generated considerable scientific enquiry. Unfortunately science has been hijacked by political agendas and, in furthering these political agendas the potential impact has been exaggerated to arrive at contradictory and illogical conclusions that are intended to impress, primarily to cause alarm. The motives of some scientists surely must come into question. Certainly public policies and public investments not only are ill-advised but they may prove an exercise in futility. Correcting non-problems may divert both public attention and investment from real needs such as energy supply and infrastructure.

I will continue this article in the May issue with the claims and counter-claims about hurricane intensity (stronger or weaker?) and about rising sea levels (20ft as per Al Gore, inundating Shanghai, Calcutta and Manhattan, or a few centimeters as per IPCC). Remember in all cases, all claims are from true believers in global warming, a lot of which is supposed to be anthropogenic. OE

Michael J Economides is a professor at the Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston, and editor-in-chief of the Energy Tribune. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect OE’s position.

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